THERE ARE CERTAIN GREEN AREAS in every city given to the citizens for recreational purposes. Of course there are rapes and muggings and homeless men sleeping in them on summer nights, but for the daring, for the careless, for those who want to be alone, these are very good places to walk, or recreate, or think. At certain times, very well into the night, a smell comes up from the grass that is worth any dangers present in these free areas. And there is a certain cleanliness, hard to distinguish, but just present, and there. There are also birds walking in these places in the late night, pecking in the ground for things only they can see, absolutely free of the popcorn bribes of children and well-meaning daytime bench-sitters. These animals are themselves at night and seem to unlearn all the daytime tricks they use to lure their daily doles of popcorn and bits of bread from some office girl’s lunchbag: they do not wander near the benches; they do not flutter up into the air and down again to tantalize a potential crumb-thrower; they do not coo gratefully when they swallow whatever it is they pull from the dark green, wet earth. They have earned it themselves, and they swallow without a sound. And continue to peck, again in silence, for more.

I called Alfred Bowles from a telephone booth at the far end of the park. Of course he was not in: it was only 2:00 A.M. and Alfred was, of necessity, a night hunter. If he had been in, I would have restated, over the telephone, my position, and would have required him to restate his. Of course it would not have mattered, being over the telephone, but we might have laid some ground rules for our talk and our drink that night. After the drink, I might have asked him about the crusade for Melville’s poetry, as if the man needed it, and his own crusade for himself as a poet and whatever else he wanted to be. I might even have let him touch me, in some inconsequential place. Certainly the most important thing I wanted to ask him was why certain people recognize me on the street and speak to me in bars when I am positive that in all my life I have never seen them before. Perhaps he might know.